The Hustle Is Hurting Us

Two of his books have had a massive impact on me and on our business. His content is consistently extraordinary, and I’m glad that he hustles to create it.

But I think his message of “never stop hustling” is scary.

When millions of people hear Gary spout the virtues of hustling…

A few⁠—very few⁠—of them will hustle until they find success.

Some⁠—a lot⁠—of them will hustle until they burn out and stop hustling and making progress.

Many, many, many more of them will watch his videos, feel guilty about not hustling, and never start anything because of their fear that they can’t hustle hard enough.

The worship of hustle actually prevents businesses from being started and grown in the first place, because those of us who don’t want to hustle⁠—or don’t think we can⁠—assume that success isn’t for us.

What the Hell Is “It”, Anyway?

Champions of the hustle love to point to “it” as the reason for why someone should hustle.

Do you have what it takes? Because it takes hustle to get there.

The promise sounds great, and I’m sure it has inspired more than a few people to push themselves.

But what the hell is It?

To me, It should be your own personal vision; what you want to achieve in your business or life.

But does It really take day-after-unsustainable-day of backbreaking work to achieve?

Here’s a simple question: should you follow the same diet and training regimen as an world champion bodybuilder?

If you want their achievements, you’ll need to.

But most of us would be perfectly happy to just be fit and healthy without sacrificing the rest of our lives in the process.

And there’s a much more sustainable way to achieve that. It’s working hard and working smart while not working too much. It’s an approach that you can stick to for life.

Gary is an world champion entrepreneur. If you want to compete at his level, then yes, you’ll need to hustle.

But most of our dreams⁠—and the level of hustle required to achieve them⁠—probably look very different.

It took me a long time (and coming close to burnout more than once) to realize that my It isn’t the same as that of some of the hard-chargers I looked up to.

My It is a lot simpler.

For me, It means loving my work, being challenged by it and learning and growing every day.

It means having a comfortable house, cars for my wife and me, and a couple of surfboards and a snowboard.

It means having the means to provide for my wife and our young son.

It means living near the water and being able to surf whenever I want.

It means having my best friends and family close by and in good health. Helping my parents financially when they retire, because they’ve spent their lives putting nearly every disposable dime they had into raising us and putting us through private schools and universities.

These things don’t require a billion dollars.

And they don’t require hustle.

In my thirteen year career I’ve managed to achieve them with hard work done at a sustainable pace, all while taking plenty of time off and keeping myself sane. And I’ve published 200+ blog posts on how we’ve done it at Groove for the past five years, that you’re free to steal from.

Before you let anyone tell you what It takes, figure out what your It even is. And then figure out what your It will take to accomplish.